


Falling in Love Again and Again and Again

by amycarey



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 14:13:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2776004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amycarey/pseuds/amycarey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A variety of Alternate Universe prompts I've been filling on tumblr. Range of ratings, pairings (though mostly Swan Queen) and universes because no matter what universe, the same characters will fall in love over and over and over again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Regina is a professor and Emma is her student (but this is secretly a coffee shop AU)

She doesn’t notice the girl until the later part of the semester. She sits at the back, lounging against that awful Blanchard girl who’s never handed a single assignment in on time, always with a medical certificate citing ‘emotional issues’ (Regina reads between the lines and comes up with ‘bad break-ups’). What she’s doing in an English course restricted to seniors is beyond Regina and she would fail her late assessments if it weren’t for the fact that her father is the head of the university, who has gotten drunk and hit on her at every Christmas party since time immemorial. She doesn’t have tenure and suspects failing Leopold Blanchard’s daughter would be a poor way into that.

 

She only notices the girl now because she looks up and sees that the girl’s asleep, head lolling back against the seats. She knows slides aren’t the most fascinating things in the world – she dozed off during her fair share of slide shows during undergrad – but the artwork is significant in terms of understanding colonial narratives and it pisses her off. The awful Blanchard girl nudges her friend who wakes with a start and meets Regina’s eye.

 

She glares and, irritatingly, the girl isn’t subdued, but stares back and shrugs.

 

Now that she’s noticed the girl, she starts seeing her everywhere, in the library, pouring over large tomes, wandering around the university in her ridiculous red leather jacket and skin-tight jeans, in the local coffee shop, scribbling notes and assignments. It’s in the university coffee shop that the girl notices her. “Hi, Professor Mills,” she says, waving as Regina stands in line for a much-needed coffee before a faculty meeting.

 

Regina raises an eyebrow but, once she has ordered, she finds herself strolling over to the girl’s table. It’s a mess of notes and text books – none of them related to English but seem to be criminology or psychology or something like that – and the girl’s handwriting is barely legible. “Hi,” the girl says again. “Sit down.” She attempts to clear some space in front of her.

 

“That’s alright, dear,” Regina says. “I generally don’t pal around with students who fall asleep in my lectures.”

 

At least the girl has the decency to look embarrassed. “Sorry about that,” she said, rubbing her neck. “I was at work until four that morning.”

 

Not an excuse,” Regina says. “Work less. Drink more coffee.”

 

“Oh the privilege of someone who could afford postgraduate degrees,” the girl says, rolling her eyes.

 

Regina shrugs. “You want to be in my class, you stay awake, dear.”

 

“Emma Swan,” the girl says. “If you’re going to be rude, you may as well know my name.”

 

“Very well, Ms Swan,” Regina begins but then her name is called so she collects her coffee and goes. She doesn’t look back at the girl, doesn’t see her run fingers through her hair, bite her lip, squint at the book in front of her.

 

“Know anything about an Emma Swan?” she asks Marian Locksley, specialist in Mediaeval Literature, married to head of the English faculty and Regina’s closest friend at the university, as they wait for Rob to call the meeting to order.

 

“Rob’s her advisor,” she says. “Lovely girl, sad story.”

 

“Oh?” Regina asks.

 

Marian’s a bit of a gossip and she tilts her head towards Regina. “In the system since birth, ended up in juvie, taking the fall for her much older boyfriend who’d also knocked her up. She’s made something of herself though, adopted the baby out. She wants to be a cop or a social worker. Something important anyway. I know she struggles to find a balance between work and study; Rob had to talk her out of quitting school last semester.”

 

And there it is, that wave of sympathy and deep embarrassment. She goes home that night and hugs her son, Henry, close to her. He’s eight and going through a stage where his mother hugging him is the mostly deeply uncool thing in existence and he shrugs her away. “Mom,” he whines. “Don’t be gross.”

 

She kisses the top of his head. “Sorry, _mijo_. I’m just so glad I have you.” He was hard-won, years of trying to adopt and then when she was finally able to, when they finally had their baby boy, there was quite suddenly not ‘their’ or ‘they anymore.

 

The next day she purchases a gift card to the university coffee shop and attaches it to the back of a marked assignment. She hopes Emma will see it as an apology.

 

“The hell is this?” Emma demands, bursting into her office several hours later. She’s quite beautiful riled up, cheeks flushed and eyes darkened with anger, and Regina’s heart pounds just that little bit louder and her skin tingles.

 

She looks over at her. “This isn’t office hours, Ms Swan,” she says. “Though that looks like a gift card. If you’re having trouble with the concept, I can explain…”

 

“Why was it attached to my essay?” she asks.

 

“I really couldn’t tell you, Ms Swan,” Regina says, boredom lacing her voice. “Would you mind shutting the door as you leave?”

 

Emma Swan stares at her for a long moment before she turns on her heel. The next day, Emma sticks a coffee on the podium as she stomps into class. It’s a large soy latte and Regina’s almost touched she got her order right; she must have asked the barista. She’s less touched by the message down the side. _Perhaps coffee will make you less of an Evil Queen._ It’s a reference to Regina’s nickname amongst the students because she doesn’t suffer fools and she’s a harsh marker.

 

“This is totally inappropriate,” she hisses, pulling Emma aside as she leaves.

 

Emma shrugs. “So was the gift card,” she says.

 

The coffees continue and each time they have a little message on them.

 

_‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ is so much better than ‘Jane Eyre’._

_I really liked yesterday’s lecture. Didn’t like the quiz so much._

_You looked amazing in that pantsuit._

 

Regina starts at the last message, heart pounding, she barely manages to stop herself from slopping coffee everywhere. Emma watches her and when Regina catches her eye, she grins. “You’re standing on very shaky ground, Ms Swan,” she tells Emma later as they walk from class together, Emma having stayed behind to ask a question about ‘Things Fall Apart’.

 

“Just telling the truth,” she says and Regina feels a bubble of exhilaration burst up in her because she thinks Emma might be flirting. “Got to run to work. Later, Professor Mills.”

 

Sometimes Regina runs into her in the coffee shop and if she stops and sits for a time, well, it’s only that her legs are tired and the line for coffee is long. It has nothing to do with the way Emma’s smiles, hard-won and pinched, light up her face, or the way her hair curls around her shoulders or the fact that she speaks so passionately about helping kids in situations like she was in.

 

“My Henry could have been in that situation,” Regina tells her.

 

“Babies get adopted out pretty easy,” Emma says. “I didn’t but…”

 

“I almost gave him back,” she admits. It’s her darkest secret and she doesn’t know why she’s telling this girl and her voice trembles when she speaks. “Two weeks after I got him, my husband died, and then my father, and Henry wouldn’t sleep and I wasn’t coping and I was worried I’d do something awful. I’d gone so far as to email the caseworker… And then he smiled at me and I just couldn’t.”

 

Emma nods. “I got given back when I was three. They had their own kid. Your reason’s better.”

 

“It’s still awful,” she says but something about telling Emma has made the sickening waves of guilt dissipate for a time.

 

Emma shrugs. “There are degrees.”

 

She’s marking examination papers when there’s a knock at her door. “Come in,” she calls out and Emma enters, carrying a large soy latte.

 

“I won’t stay,” she says because she’s taken to popping in during office hours and working on Regina’s couch if no one else shows up. “Just came to drop this off. Last one. I finished my exams today.”

 

She doesn’t expect to feel so upset hearing this. “Very well, Ms Swan,” she says. “Best of luck with your life.”

 

“Thanks,” Emma says and she puts the coffee down in front of Regina and leaves. For a moment Regina just stares at it, before she picks it up to find the message because there has to be one.

 

And there is one. It’s a phone number followed by:

 

_Give me a call sometime, Professor Mills._

_Love Emma_

 

Regina smiles and picks up her phone.


	2. In which Emma and Regina share a cab

It’s raining, the streets glassy with rain and thunder grumbling distantly. Regina has just got into the cab when the woman slips in through the other door. “My cab,” Regina snarls because she’s not getting back out in the rain. Her shoes are destroyed, her hair is saturated and she fell over just outside the box office, tearing her pantyhose and, she suspects, leaving a sharp, stinging graze down her left calf.

 

The woman looks at her. She’s shivering and pathetic and her hair is wet and straggly around her bare shoulders. She widens her eyes and sniffs like she’s dying. “Please?” she asks. “Don’t make me go back out there.” She makes it sound like something terrible has happened and Regina feels a momentary pang of concern that she has been attacked or is being followed before she looks out the window and sees that there’s nothing for as far as the eye can see but rain-slick pavement.

 

“ _Out_ ,” she says. She clips the seatbelt, assuring the woman through this gesture that she is not going anywhere and tries to ignore the clammy feel of wool drying against her skin.

 

“We could share,” the woman suggests. Her door is still open and rain flecks the leather upholstery. “I’ll pay more. Don’t force me back out in the rain again.”

 

“You’re quite pathetic,” Regina says.

 

“Ladies, the meter’s running,” the driver says and Regina catches his shadowed face staring at them in the rear-view mirror. “You can keep arguing about this but you’ll just end up paying more.”

 

“Fine,” Regina growls. “You’ll drop me first. Mifflin Street.”

 

“I’m actually closer than that,” the woman says, but shrinks back against the door of the taxi at Regina’s glare.

 

The only sound for several minutes is the K-pop blasting from the driver’s radio and it reminds her of Henry who is going through a _phase_ and gets angry when she can’t differentiate between SHINee and Super Junior. She knows this one – through osmosis – and despite herself she starts tapping along to the music against her thigh.

 

The woman watches her and even in the dark Regina can see that her eyes are wide and wary. “I can’t believe you know K-pop,” she says.

 

“I have a son,” Regina replies. “While I’d prefer he practised the piano or learned Spanish, he likes perfecting Korean pop music dance routines instead.” She’s almost proud; Henry’s at least as stubborn as she is and all Regina’s talks about ‘knowing one’s own culture before discovering others’ are duly listened to before he does exactly as he wishes. She supposes that discovering her heritage was a form of rebellion against her white, racist mother, while Henry has never had that.

 

“You don’t look old enough to have a son old enough to like K-pop,” the woman says, and is she flirting? She’s certainly got the eyelashes for it, but her face is impassive and she’s staring out the window at the rain-distorted street lights.

 

“He’s twelve,” she finds herself saying because she’s incapable of _not_ talking about Henry when given any opportunity. “His name’s Henry and he’s perfect.”

 

“Cute name,” the woman says. “And what’s yours?”

 

“You can call me Ms Mills,” Regina says.

 

“You can call me Cordelia,” the woman replies and Regina’s suspicions that she’s referencing ‘Anne of Green Gables’ are confirmed when she adds, “but if you must call me Emma it’s Emma with an ‘E’.”

 

“That makes no sense,” Regina says, scoffing. There’s something about this woman, still shivering in her red cocktail dress. She’s tough, arms clutched around herself as though that will do anything to ward off the chill, and almost charming. “Driver, could you turn up the heat, please?”

 

Emma looks at her gratefully. “So, Ms Mills,” she says. “What brings you out on the worst night in years?”

 

She could ignore her. Pleasantries have been exchanged already, but it is twenty more minutes by cab to her place, her phone fell in a puddle and shut itself down so she can’t entertain herself and it is pitch black outside, the scenery disappearing into the velvety darkness. “It’s Henry’s birthday tomorrow,” she says. “I had to pick up his gift.”

 

“Something tasteful, I assume,” Emma says, eyeing Regina’s pearl necklace and designer pea coat with a quirk to her lips, not quite a smile but something close. “A fancy pen? Cufflinks?”

 

“VIXX tickets for next month,” she says. It comes out in a reluctant croak. It had been so deeply embarrassing to pick up the tickets tonight, the box office clerk raising her eyebrows and Regina had felt this absurd desire to screech “they’re not for me”, which, while technically true though of course she’s accompanying Henry and his two friends to the concert, would have been as good as admitting to being a massive fan.

 

Emma looks over at her and there’s that almost-smile again playing on her lips. “You’re a good mom,” she says.

 

“You obviously don’t have high expectations of mothers,” Regina quips and she is surprised to find herself worried when Emma falls silent.

 

“It’s hard to have high expectations when you don’t have parents,” Emma says eventually and her hands twist in her lap. She picks at the cuticles of her nails and won’t look at Regina.

 

“Sorry,” Regina says and she begrudges the apology because she doesn’t _do_ apologies but Emma’s looking so vulnerable and tragic that it makes her heart clench in sympathy. She reaches out a hand without thinking and touches her wrist where she feels the goose bumps on her skin and the hairs standing on end. She’s so cold and she draws her hand back quickly when Emma flinches at her touch.

 

“S’okay,” Emma says and she grimaces, baring her teeth. Regina might have thought it was a smile if she hadn’t been watching Emma’s eyes, and seen that they were still pained when a flash from the street lights hit her face. “Just, tell your kid he’s really lucky.”

 

Regina smiles for the first time since she left work at ridiculous o’clock to go and pick up concert tickets. “So what were you doing out in this weather?” she asks.

 

“I just finished work,” Emma says and Regina raises an eyebrow because the skin tight dress doesn’t seem particularly work appropriate. “I’m a bounty hunter,” she says, like this explains everything rather than making her attire even more incongruous.

 

“Are you a television bounty hunter?” Regina asks, raising an eyebrow. “I generally don’t find heels and tight dresses easy to run in.”

 

“Found him through a dating site,” Emma says. “He was screwing around on his wife while letting her take the collateral for him skipping bail. Men are trash. Besides,” she adds, “you don’t have to run when you clamp the wheel of their car.”

 

Regina looks across at her. She’s so slim and despite the arms – taut, defined muscle visible even in the shadow of the cab – Regina cannot see anywhere she could keep weaponry (certainly not in her tiny clutch or strapped to her body and she wonders how Emma can possibly take down bail jumpers. “It’s a very nice dress,” she says instead.

 

“Thanks,” Emma says and she pats down the skirt, which has ridden high during the ride, baring an expanse of creamy thigh that Regina’s eye stays on for just a bit too long, judging by Emma’s knowing smirk. There’s a sizzle of electricity between them in spite of the damp and Regina finds that she’s sorry when the cab pulls up in front of her house.

 

She pulls out her wallet and places a wad of cash on the seat between them. “This should cover the ride, plus tips,” she says.

 

Emma frowns. “I can pay my share.”

 

“I know,” Regina says and then, before she can lose her nerve, she adds, “actually, how would you like a glass of the best apple cider you’ve ever tasted?”

 

Emma smiles properly; it’s vulnerable and open and makes Regina’s heart pound alarmingly loudly in her ears. “Got anything stronger?”


	3. In which Emma and Regina are superheroes

Emma crouches on the rooftop, watching the street below. Trouble’s brewing. She can feel it in the air, which is too still, as if the world is holding its breath.

 

The door to the roof creaks open. “Need some help, Cygnus?” asks a voice from directly behind her. It’s her. The Queen. Emma doesn’t have to turn to recognise that voice, low and seductive.

 

“Always,” she says and her heart makes the rat-tat-tat drum beat she’s coming to associate with the Queen.

 

“I had a tip-off from Little Red,” she says.

 

“The medusa?” she asks and she sees the Queen nod out of the corner of her eye.  

 

They watch the street, side by side, and Emma feels that familiar closeness, that spark between them that she’s always been too terrified to do anything about, even though she knows the Queen feels it too.

 

It doesn’t take long before there’s a bright light and the medusa appears. It terrifies Emma, the metal snakes in her hair hissing and whistling, the idea of the eyes fascinating her, though she knows she can’t look into them. They’ve seen the consequences of that. They don’t know who’s created it, though Little Red and the Grasshopper are looking into it, and that’s terrifying.

 

Emma turns to the Queen and sees her scarlet lips, unobscured by the black mask that covers the upper half of her face, curve into a smile. “Come along, Cygnus,” she says and throws her arms around Emma’s neck. She leaps from fire escape to window frame, her strength and agility assets the Queen knows about as well as Emma at this point, and tries not to notice the press of the Queen’s body against her back or the way her breath tickles Emma’s neck.

 

The Queen laughs, delighted, when they reach the street and she charges brazenly forward, her eyes shielded with one hand and the other wielding a ball of fire. She has no strategy; Emma’s seen her in battle too many times to count. She often wonders if she has a death wish. She lobs the fireball and the medusa ducks and keeps moving towards them.

 

Emma runs forward, punching at a pylon and seeing a line fall. It narrowly misses the medusa, the end cracking and sparking on the street. The Queen continues to lob fire at the medusa and then she does it. She hits its side and the metal sizzles and distorts, a faint whine coming from the mechanisms. Emma clenches her fists.

 

She turns and it’s so like a child turning back to his mother to see if they’re proud and Emma’s reminded of her son, Henry, so desperate for her praise. “I did it!” she says and then Emma hears the hissing and giggling of the snakes and sees one of them preparing to strike from the corner of her eye and she doesn’t think, just acts.

 

She leaps in front of the Queen, pushing Regina out of the way and breaking off the striking snake with a swift jerk of her fist. It is as she does so that she stares into the face of the medusa. The eyes are so ordinary, she notes with some disappointment, before she falls backward, her feet leaden.

 

There’s a great deal of fire, she thinks, seeing flames overhead, and she hopes the Queen has destroyed the medusa. Next thing the Queen is kneeling beside her. “No,” she says and her voice is so broken. “No.” Louder this time, more emphatic.

 

“Sorry,” Emma says and she’s frozen to her chest and now and it hurts so badly because her heart struggles to beat against stone. “I guess we won’t be going on that date after all.”

 

“You never asked me,” the Queen says and she lets out a broken gasp and wisps of smoke appear from her hands, uncontrollable. “I would have said yes.”

 

“A pity yes?” Emma asks.

 

“Idiot,” the Queen says and Emma feels lips on hers. Everything falls dark.

 

*

 

Emma blinks and she’s surprised by the movement because the medusa turns people to stone, right? How can she blink? She feels like she’s been run over by a truck (it happened once; the Queen had laughed about that one for weeks once she saw that she was all right).

 

She sits up. She’s alone on the streets of Storybrooke, and she’s alive.

 

She doesn’t know how but she has her suspicions. Love can be a powerful thing.

 

The town clock chimes eight and she swears. She’s late to pick up her son. He lives with his mother. Regina Mills adopted him when he was born and she’s only recently and begrudgingly been allowed into his life because Henry came and found her. She gets him one weekend a month now and it lightens her heart. She’s aching when she eases herself off the street and searches for her keys, finding them stuffed in a pocket of her jumpsuit.

 

She ducks into an alley and strips, letting her hair loose from the idiotic hat-type-thing Granny made her when she’d first recruited her for her super strength and running her fingers through it, and pulling on jeans and a tank, hidden behind a skip.

 

The porch light is on when she arrives at Mifflin Street and she walks nervously to the door, trying not to show that she’s aching to the very marrow of her bones.

 

“Ms Swan,” Regina says, opening the door before she has time to knock. Even at this hour on a Friday night, she’s impeccably dressed in a pantsuit, hair coiffed and make-up flawless. “When I allow you to have _my_ son for a weekend, I expect you to turn up on time to pick him up.”

 

“Sorry,” Emma says. She’s too tired to fight, though it looks like Regina’s gearing up for one, judging by the snarl on her plum lips. “Bad day.”

 

Regina calls for Henry and Emma hears thumping from upstairs. “You don’t look well,” she says while they wait for him. “I certainly hope Henry won’t catch what you have.”

 

“I’m certain,” Emma says. “I got knocked about a bit. Hey, kid,” she adds as Henry comes running, clutching her around the waist so hard it hurts.

 

Regina hands her Henry’s duffle bag and their finger meet and there’s an all too familiar sizzle between them and Emma looks at Regina, really looks at her rather than focusing on Henry as she usually does when she’s around his mother, and there’s something familiar about those lips and eyes, the curve of her jaw.

 

_Oh God._

 

“Take a picture, Ms Swan,” Regina says and she is such an idiot because Regina even means queen.

 

“Yeah,” Emma says and then giggles because it’s all too bizarre for words. “See you later, your majesty.”

 

She looks back when she’s down the path and Henry’s telling her about this game he got to see Regina standing in the doorway, her fingers pressed to her lips.


	4. In which Regina and Emma are doctors

“You should check in with Dr Swan on this one,” Dr Locksley says, looking over the file Regina has shown her, and Regina frowns.

 

“Who?”

 

“She’s the new orthopaedic surgeon,” she says. “Given you broke Dr Whale’s hand…” She’s actually just back from suspension for that, Marian having to act on it despite her own distaste for Whale, but it also got him fired because it wasn’t the first time he’d had his hands in places they shouldn’t have been, so she considers her week off unpaid worth it.

 

She finds Dr Swan in Whale’s former office. She’s blonde and absurdly pretty and deep in concentration, checking paperwork. Regina stands in the doorway for a moment, just watching her as she works. “Dr Swan?” she asks eventually.

 

“Hi.” The woman leaps up, tripping over a waste basket on route to the door but managing to right herself and holding out a hand for Regina to shake. “Please, it’s Emma.”

 

And it’s at that point that Regina realises she does know this woman, mind flashing back to several years ago – a conference, too much wine at the bar between then, stumbling into a hotel room, fingers, tongues, teeth. “Sorry,” she says. “I’ve just remembered something. I’ll pop back later.”

 

She strides from the room, heels clacking against linoleum and feeling Emma Swan’s eyes following her.

 

Of course, once she has reached her office, she’s realised that of course she can’t avoid Dr Swan forever. Or for very long at all because she really needs an orthopaedic surgeon to consult on for one of her oncology patients. She feels a tension headache coming on and it’s barely noon.

 

There’s a knock at her door and Emma Swan pops her head in. “Hey, Dr Locksley said you had some x-rays you wanted me to look at?”

 

Regina starts. “Yes, here.” She passes Emma the file.

 

Emma scans the x-rays. “Yup, scoliosis. Pretty bad too. Might need surgery.” She frowns and looks up at Regina. “You look familiar.”

 

Regina shrugs, hoping her erratic heartbeat can’t be heard, even though it’s all too loud in her own ears. “I must have one of those faces I suppose.”

 

“No you don’t,” Emma says. “Your face is entirely too memorable. Spectacular.” It’s the determined sort of flirting Regina remembers from the conference. All brash smiles and no subtlety. She’d been charmed by that smile after a glass of wine, and naked and moaning on the floor of her hotel room, the smile only visible when Emma looked up teasingly from between Regina’s legs, after four glasses.

 

“Let’s try and keep this professional, Dr Swan,” she says, grimacing, and Emma nods. “What’s the game plan?”

 

“Patient can be referred to me,” Emma says, looking at the x-rays again. “It’s a pretty standard surgery really.”

 

“I’ll be present for it,” Regina replies.

 

Emma rolls her eyes. “Do you know anything about surgery for scoliosis?” she asks.

 

“No,” Regina says. “But I’m a quick study and I’ve been operating on Ava since she was three.” Ava’s had a series of aggressive cancers and tumours and for a while, the hospital was her second home. She’s been in remission for two years now and Regina was heartbroken when she saw her in the waiting room. “I told her I’d be in the operating theatre with her and I’m not going back on my word.” She says it so fiercely Emma simply nods and agrees, under the proviso that she doesn’t get in the way.

 

*

 

“So,” Emma says, holding the scalpel, hands steady and applying firm pressure as she cuts along Ava’s spine. “Paediatric oncology?” Regina likes to work with classical music playing, something soothing, but Emma seems to prefer silence. It’s unnerving but then she’s not the primary on this one.

                                                                             

“I like children,” Regina says. Her mother had wanted her in cardiology or neurology; she had used her not inconsiderable sway at the Miami-based hospital where Regina had interned to ensure she was mentored by the head of cardiology there. When her husband had died, she’d become independently wealthy. She had quit and moved to Storybrooke, a teaching hospital in small-town Maine, which was about as far as she could get from her mother and her awful step-daughter.

 

“Cutting them up seemed to be the obvious answer to that?” Emma asks. “Suction please.”

 

“Saving them seemed to be the obvious answer,” Regina snaps.

 

“Touché,” Emma says and she stops talking, beyond brief instructions. Regina watches her hands work, her fingers long beneath the gloves, and Regina recalls several small scars along her fingers. She watches Emma at work over the long hours, fitting in metal rods, grafting the bone. “All right, people, I think we’re good here.”

 

After surgery and Regina checking in on the child – she’s groggy and pained but she’s going to be okay and Regina couldn’t be more grateful – Emma stops by her office. “Were my abilities acceptable?” she asks.

 

“Ava’s parents are very grateful,” she says and after a pause, adds, “as am I.”

 

She feels grimy at day’s end and takes advantage of the showers in the locker room. As she’s massaging shampoo into her hair she hears someone else enter, humming tunelessly. She’s drying off when Emma exits the showers, towel wrapped around her. “Hey,” she says. “You smell amazing. Is that your shampoo?”

 

Regina feels her face go hot, grateful she doesn’t tend to blush, as she pulls her towel around herself, attempting the complicated procedure of getting into her underwear and bra from under the towel. Emma doesn’t seem to have the same anxiety about showing her body and Regina blushes and averts her eyes when she catches a glimpse of ass. “You had dinner yet?” Emma asks.

 

Regina’s stomach growls in response and Emma raises her eyebrows. “Well, that answered my question. Cafeteria?”

 

Regina wants to say no, wants to fall onto her bed and sleep for twelve hours straight. “Sure. Why not?”

 

So they get food from the cafeteria, which is uniformly terrible though Emma obviously hasn’t worked here long enough to figure that out. Grabbing a fry from Emma’s plate, Regina asks, “so why orthopaedics?”

 

Emma laughs. “I like breaking bones,” she says.

 

“Huh,” Regina says. She twists her ring around her finger.

 

“Wedding ring?” Emma asks. “Didn’t pick you as married.”

 

“Wrong finger,” Regina says. “I was married though. Once.”

 

 Leopold. She had been grieving the love of her life, and her mother had ambushed her with him and his step-daughter. The perfect little family, already set up so Regina wouldn’t have to waste time having children when she could be advancing her career. She’d been on auto-pilot and by the time she realised she didn’t care for the grey haired, paunchy fool, it had been too late.

 

“Ended badly?” Emma asked, dipping a fry in ketchup.

 

“Well, he died,” Regina says, shrugging. “But I came out pretty well of it.”

 

Emma smiles, awkward and quirked at one corner. “When was that?”

 

“Three years ago,” she says.

 

“So you were still married when we slept together?” Emma asks and Regina drops her fork, salad dressing splattering onto her shirt. She dabs at it ineffectually with her napkin, trying to hide her face as Emma giggles.

 

“You knew this whole time,” Regina says when Emma stops laughing.

 

“Well, yeah,” Emma says. “Like I said, your face is memorable. Body too.”

 

“Pervert,” Regina says but there’s no bite in her words, no matter how outraged she knows she should feel because Emma’s known this whole time and she hates being made foolish.

 

And when Emma suggests coffee when they’ve finished a truly unsatisfying meal, Regina says, “the coffee here is terrible. Come over to mine instead.”

 

There’s a promise in Regina’s eyes that is fulfilled in salt and heat and her head between Emma’s thighs and Emma mewling with pleasure, head thrown back and hands coiled in Regina’s hair, tugging and jerking.

 

*

 

The next day, they walk into work together and Regina’s smiling and when Emma eyes her in a way that can only be called predatory, she pulls her shirt-first into her office and kisses her.


	5. In which Ruby Lucas has to deal with her Gryffindor roommates being IDIOTS

“Be good,” Granny said, flicking her under the chin, and it was about as emotional as Ruby had ever seen her grandmother. She got on the train, teary-eyed, desperate to find a carriage with other first years who wouldn’t laugh at her if she let a few tears loose.

 

She found a carriage, nearly empty, but for one girl who looked like she might be a first year. “Is this seat free?” she asked and the blonde girl staring out the window at the platform just shrugged. “I’m Ruby Lucas.” Granny had said she shouldn’t let her curse stop her from making friends.

 

“Emma Swan,” the girl said and Ruby gaped. Everyone had heard of Emma Swan, the orphaned daughter of the greatest war heroes of magical society. Emma scowled at her.

 

“Sorry,” she said. “Hey, want to share my sandwiches?” Granny had packed her enough cheese on toast, enchanted to stay warm and crisp, to last a week.

 

Emma eyed the cheese on toast suspiciously but hunger obviously won out. “I guess,” she said. “Thanks.”

 

By the end of the train ride they were best friends and Ruby wasn’t sure when she’d ever been so happy. They were led onto boats by the grounds keeper and two other girls got in with them. “I’m Kathryn Midas,” the little blonde girl squeaked.

 

“Regina Mills,” the other girl, olive skinned and haughty, said. “You must be Emma Swan,” Regina Mills said, staring down Ruby’s new best friend. “I hardly see how a scruffy little scrap like you could be the daughter of the Swans.”

 

Emma scowled again, eyebrows knitting together and lips disappearing into a thin line. “Leave her alone,” Ruby said.

 

“And you must be the Lucas whelp,” Regina added. “My mother told me to watch out for the likes of you.”

 

Ruby’s fists clenched and she felt the wolf rise in her. She growled and Mills cackled in delight. “Oh my God,” she said. “Did you just growl?”

 

“Regina, be nice,” Kathryn said. “I’m so sorry,” she added looking at Ruby and Emma.

 

“That’s all right,” Emma said and reached out and pushed Regina Mills into the lake.

 

Regina’s nice friend, Kathryn, got sorted into Ravenclaw but Regina ended up as the third girl in Gryffindor with her and Emma, which, Ruby reflected, was proof that Gryffindor wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

 

*

 

In their second year, Regina Mills came to school with a cat. “His name’s Henry,” she told them, “and he’s very particular.”

 

The cat _hated_ Ruby.

 

It loved Emma, however. “Go away,” Emma hissed. “Mills is going to kill me.” But Henry curled resolutely up on Emma’s feet and snarled when anyone tried to move him.

 

“He’s _my_ cat,” Regina said, sulking.

 

“Doesn’t seem to like you very much,” Emma, who hadn’t had any interest in the cat until it turned out that it would really irritate Regina, snapped.

 

Regina jinxed her and for three days Emma skipped at every third step.

 

*

 

In their third year, both Regina and Emma tried out for the position of Seeker on the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

 

Emma got it. Regina was offered one of the Chaser positions. Ruby, who’d been a Chaser on the team since her second year, was getting changed when the captain told Regina. “You’re fast,” Mulan said. “Swan’s just got better reflexes is all.”

 

Regina sneered. “I hope she loses you every match.”

 

She refused to play for Gryffindor and cheered for Slytherin in the next match. Professor Nolan had to take her aside and tell her she was being a bad sport. “It’s just not very Gryffindor of you, Mills,” he said.

 

“Gryffindor is terrible,” Mills said, though she was back to cheering for Gryffindor in the next match, though never for Emma.

 

*

 

In their fourth year, Emma saved Regina from Ruby. Emma had tried to be there for her at the beginning of her transformations since she’d found out but that night Regina followed them.

 

“Go away, Mills,” Emma snarled.

 

“No, I’m curious. What _do_ you and Lucas get up to when you run off alone together?” Mills asked and even Ruby, who was rather distracted by the process of backbreaking transformation into a wolf, could sense the jealousy in Mills’ voice.

 

“It’s a full moon, Mills,” Emma said. “Get the hell out of here.”

 

Mills’ face blanched white beneath her olive skin. “I didn’t think…” she stuttered.

 

And then Ruby couldn’t remember anything more, lost in the instincts of the wolf. When she came to, there was blood on her hands and she ran to the hospital wing in a panic. Regina Mills sat beside Emma’s bedside. “Idiot,” she said and it almost sounded fond. “She got between me and you.”

 

“I think you’re the idiot,” Ruby said, trying bravery out for a spell.

 

“Probably,” Mills said, staring at Emma’s prone form. “She’s going to be fine though.”

 

*

 

In their fifth year the school hosted international visitors from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons and as part of that Professor Gold held a ball over Christmas.

 

“This is the worst,” Emma muttered. “Having to ask people to the ball.” She kicked at the seat. “Why can’t you go with me?”

 

“I already asked the cute German boy,” Ruby said. “I heard Regina Mills doesn’t have a date yet…”

 

“Probably because of her vile personality,” Emma said, sneering.

 

“I don’t think boys care about that,” Ruby said thoughtfully. “And she’s beautiful, you’ve got to admit it.”

 

“I don’t have to admit anything,” Emma said, though Ruby noticed her eyes were drawn to Regina over the other side of the room.

 

Emma ended up taking this third year girl, Elsa, who idolised her and spent the whole night glaring at Regina and her date, an extremely pretty girl from Beauxbatons who Ruby had found out was called Marian.

 

“Didn’t know she liked girls,” Emma grumbled.

 

Ruby smirked. Her date had been a bust though, Victor being less cute and increasingly creepy as the night wore on and she returned to the dormitories kind of dispirited in the universe of dating and boys. She opened the door to find Emma and Regina in each other’s faces.

 

“How could you take a _third year_ as date?” Regina yelled. “Can’t find anyone your own age?”

 

“Well, you never told me you liked girls,” Emma screamed back.

 

“You should have figured it out,” Regina snapped. “Idiot.”

 

“Bitch.”

 

Regina sent a flock of canaries at Emma’s head and flung herself onto her bed, disturbing poor Henry who screeched and leapt out the window, pulling the curtains shut around her. Ruby rolled her eyes and performed the counter-curse. “I don’t get her,” Emma said, staring dolefully at her pecked hands.

 

*

 

In their sixth year, Regina’s father died. She went to the funeral and came back, wan and slumped and snappy.

 

It wasn’t until they reached their dorm room that she collapsed on the floor, sobbing and clutching desperately at her chest. Ruby stood stupidly in the doorway but Emma went to her. “I want it gone!” Regina cried. “Get it out of me.”

 

“What?” Emma asked, sitting on the floor beside her.

 

“My heart,” Regina said, through her tears. “I don’t want one. It hurts too much.”

 

Ruby watched as Emma pulled Regina towards her. Regina hit Emma. “Let me go, Swan,” she yelled.

 

“No,” Emma said, letting the blows rain down on her shoulders. Eventually Regina stopped and let herself be held, Emma rubbing circles on her back and whispering into her hair.

 

Ruby slipped out the door. She wasn’t needed.

 

*

 

It was in seventh year when it happened.

 

Ruby was on patrol when she heard the noises coming from a dead-end corridor, but her hearing was particularly acute in the lead up to the full moon.

 

She didn’t mean to spy but there was something satisfying about seven years of prediction and observation coming to fruition. Emma had Regina up against the stone wall of the corridor, her shirt unbuttoned and the smooth planes of her stomach clawed at by Emma, who also nipped and sucked at Regina’s neck. Regina whimpered, breathy groans at each kiss or bite and her hands fell to Emma’s breasts, roughly palming them in her hands.

 

“Hem hem,” Ruby coughed, in perfect imitation of Professor Blanchard, and the pair spun around, Regina’s hands still on Emma’s breasts. “Well, this took you long enough to figure out,” she said. “But a corridor, Emma. Really?”

 

Emma grinned and Ruby noted the plum lipstick marks smeared around her mouth. “Would you rather we use the dorm room?” she asked and Ruby pulled a face.

 

“As you were,” she said and turning she laughed when she heard Regina.

 

“You heard the woman, Swan,” she commanded and judging by the noises Ruby really wished she could forget as she ran to get to another part of the castle, Emma got straight back to work.


	6. In which Regina engages Emma in the worst fake relationship ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavily inspired by the worst romantic comedy, 'What's Your Number'.

Regina was woken by the knocking at the door. She struggled out of bed, pulled on her dressing gown, and rubbed her eyes, eyelids droopy with sleep. The knocking intensified.

She opened it to find the woman from across the hall, she of the red panties and tank tops and very little other actual clothing. Today the underwear was pink and lacy and the tank top was thin enough to display all too clearly that she wasn’t wearing a bra. She slid past Regina, grinning, and made her way to the kitchen. “Hey, babe,” she said.

Regina just stared for a long moment. The woman started making coffee. “Got locked out of my apartment,” she said. “You don’t mind if I crash here for a bit, right?”

As the coffee percolated, Regina stood at her still-open door and saw a scantily clad woman leave, long legs and swaying hips. “You could have asked the girl in your apartment to let you in,” she suggested acerbically. “Or perhaps used the key on the chain around your neck?”

“Oh, would you look at that!” the woman said, with exaggerated shock. 

“You’re using my place to hide from some poor girl who made the mistake of going home with you?” Regina asked. 

“Poor girl seems unfair,” the woman said. “She had a really good time.” 

“Ugh.” It was far too early in the morning for this.

“Hey, this could be a good thing we have going on here,” the woman said. “You can get rid of my conquests. No, scratch that term. I’m not Columbus or anything gross like that. My one night stands who sometimes like to hang around for breakfast. I can drink your coffee.”

“There is nothing in that for me,” Regina said. “And I would like you out of my apartment.”

“Sure thing, Ms Mills,” the woman said. “Nice nightie, by the way.” And she sauntered past, Regina’s favourite mug in her hand, and blissfully confident in her own body. 

Regina latched the door behind her and went to the kitchen to mainline coffee, finding a mug there for her. Irritatingly, it was made exactly to her specifications.

She’d barely taken two sips when her phone rang. “Regina, it’s your mother,” she said. “Now, there is a space reserved for your date to your sister’s wedding this Saturday. I assume you don’t have one.”

“Hello, Mother,” Regina said, sighing.

“I have a nice young man lined up for you,” her mother said and Regina supressed the childish urge to make gagging noises at ‘nice young man’. Last time her mother had tried to set her up with a ‘nice young man’ he’d been pushing fifty and had a grown up daughter.

“No, that’s fine, I have a date,” she said.

“Really?” her mother asked and Regina would have been insulted by the dubious note in her voice had it not been for the time that she’d ‘brought a date’ to a Christmas function, in that she’d held two drinks the entire time and pretended he was in the bathroom or talking to someone else until she’d got so drunk sculling back double her alcohol limit that she’d started laughing hysterically and told everyone. Not her finest hour.

“Yes, Mother, really,” she said. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

She hung up. Shit. 

It was later that evening, when she heard the woman from across the hall giggle past her door with her companion – male this time – that she formulated the plan. 

She woke early, dressed in her best suit and heels, grabbed her suitcase and crept across the hall. Sure enough, the woman’s apartment was unlocked. She walked in, slammed the door and took in the sight before her. The woman was lying on her back the sheet only half-covering her body, and Regina blushed when she took note of the woman’s alarmingly pert breasts, the pink nipples stiff in the cool air. The man she’d been with was lying on his front, one arm draped across the woman’s belly. 

“Oh my God!” Regina yelled. “How could you, pookie?” The woman cracked an eye open and there was a moment where pleasant befuddlement crossed her features. “I’m away for one night and you bring home this miscreant!” She found she was rather enjoying herself, deepening her voice. She’d always had a flair for the dramatic.

The man rolled over. “You’re married?” he asked, eyeing Regina, half fear and half appreciation. 

“Of course she’s married!” Regina yelled. “Get out!”

He leapt up, grabbing his clothes, and ran out of the apartment, whispering his apologies as he went. Regina ignored him, throwing whatever she could reach at the woman. 

The woman nodded appreciatively when the door closed behind him and got out of bed wandering stark naked to the kitchen and Regina wondered if it was possible to combust out of a combination of lust and embarrassment. Those legs. That stomach. Those breasts. She shook her head.

“Nice job, Mills,” the woman said, smiling. 

“Yes, well,” Regina said. “I’ve worked out how you can repay me.” She looked over at Emma, making coffee, and found herself momentarily drawn to the curve of her back, the constellation of freckles on her lower back. “Oh for goodness sake, put some clothes on.”

The woman shrugged and sauntered over to a chest of drawers where she found a large shirt and slipped it on. “Coffee?”

“Please,” Regina said. “Now, what are you doing Saturday?” And she outlined the plan.

*

Come Saturday, Regina was rather regretting the whole business. She’d picked the woman precisely because she would infuriate her mother. Not because she was a woman – Cora Mills liked to think she was progressive – but because she was utterly lacking in class. Now, though, she’d have to spend hours with her. She smoothed the folds of her blue dress and knocked. 

The woman answered and Regina’s throat felt rather suddenly dry. She was wearing a suit, damn her, like she’d known exactly what Regina’s turn ons were. It fit like a dream and was paired with a ridiculously high pair of heels and loose, golden curls. “Hi,” Regina said and then coughed. She was obviously coming down with something. It certainly wasn’t lust that had her feeling all … floofy. 

“Shall we?” the woman said, offering Regina her arm. 

It was in the car on the way to Storybrooke that Regina thought to ask. “What’s your name?”

The woman looked over at her, grinning in delight. “Seriously? You don’t even know my name?”

Regina rolled her eyes, concentrating on the road. “It was never necessary. If you don’t tell me I’ll just call you pet names all day, Angel Cakes.”

“Emma,” the woman said. “Emma Swan.” 

Regina parked in the church car park and strode forward, letting Emma fall behind. Her mother stood at the entrance to the church. “Regina, darling,” she said. “Such a disaster with the florist. Yellow roses instead of pink. Zelena’s beside herself.” She tuned to Emma. “You must be Regina’s date. Cora Mills.” She held out a hand to Emma, who shook it.

“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs Mills,” Emma said. “Shall we get inside, darling?”

“I like her,” her mother said and Regina groaned internally. This was not going to plan at all.

In fact, Regina’s entire family, friends and acquaintances liked Emma. “She’s charming,” her insipid elementary school teacher, Mary Margaret Blanchard, said.

“Step up from your last girlfriend,” Zelena said, kissing Regina on one cheek.

“I like her,” her best friend, Kathryn, said. “She’s got personality.” 

Regina scowled, watching Emma chat to her old high school track coach. She’d had a few glasses of champagne, Zelena had had her first dance with Walsh (the incredibly bland boy she’d married) and the DJ was playing Madonna. She got up and stumbled over to the bar. “Another,” she said, adding, “thank you,” when she realised how imperious she’d sounded.

“Hey.” An arm wrapped around her waist. Emma. She could smell her perfume, soft and yet intoxicating, and she leaned back into Emma’s body without thinking. “Want to dance?”

Regina shrugged. “I suppose we should. For appearances’ sake.”

She heard the smile in Emma’s voice. “Yes. Appearances.” Emma pulled her close, an arm around her waist and they swayed together. “Did I do okay?” she asked.

“You did appallingly,” Regina said. “Everyone loved you.”

“Did you want me to be awful?”

“Everything I’ve seen of you before today has been awful,” Regina said. “Why would I have expected you to be any different for today?”

“Everything you’ve seen of me?” Emma asked and Regina pulled back and saw the smirk on Emma’s lips and she knew. She knew Regina had seen everything, and had admired it, the curves and planes of Emma’s body. Regina’s face flushed and a muscle in her jaw twitched.

“Perhaps not everything, dear,” she said. “I won’t be one of your conquests though. I have far too much self-respect for that.”

“Well,” Emma said and she grinned. “I guess I’ll just have to, like, woo you or something.” And leaning forward, she pressed her lips against Regina’s, soft and gentle and a flutter went through Regina’s body and her hands clenched reflexively around Emma’s waist. 

“Fake relationship, Emma. Let’s not try too hard to make it convincing,” Regina said when they parted, though her throat was hoarse and raspy, and Emma laughed.

“Want to go on a fake date next Saturday?” she asked.


	7. In which Marian owns the coffee shop Regina frequents (and also they both have super powers)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not Swan Queen. Tags updated accordingly.

Marian sighed and watched the hands of the clock on the wall above her tick around. 1.15. 1.16. 1.17. She wondered if perhaps the fact that time seemed to be moving so slowly was being influenced by someone’s superpowers, someone in the shop with the ability to slow time.

 

Everyone in Storybrooke had a superpower of some description, though very few were useful or meaningful in any way. Some powers manifested early – her cousin, Diego, was found levitating out of his crib when he was a baby – but many came later. Marian had discovered her superpower at sixteen, going for her first ever after-school job. She could make the perfect cup of coffee any time, any place, no matter how terrible the raw ingredients.

 

It was hardly the stuff of comic books or blockbuster movies or headline news but it did mean that when she had returned to Storybrooke after college with a business degree and a tiny amount of capital, she’d been able to open Sherwood Café and do a roaring trade.

 

1.22.

 

She pulled her hair from her braid, combing her fingers through the curls, unruly from a whole morning bent and twisted while still damp, and re-plaiting, using the metal of the beast of a coffee machine as a mirror. She swiped a fresh coat of lip gloss over her lips, which unfortunately caught Tiana’s attention.

 

“Getting all dolled up for the mayor?” she asked, sticking her head through the serving hatch. She spoke just that little bit too loudly and Marian whipped her head around, terrified someone might hear him. After the lunch rush, though, the only people in Sherwood were university students, headphones in, computers out, blocking out the world to complete assignments, and one masked vigilante dressed in a navy bodysuit in the corner, sipping on an iced mocha, in spite of the inclement weather outside.

 

“Shouldn’t you be making tomorrow’s dough?” Marian asked. “Instead of bothering me.”

 

“It’s proving,” she said, grinning. Tiana was an import from New Orleans. She’d moved to Storybrooke to study her masters but had dropped out and now she baked for Marian. Her beignets had caused Marian to gain five pounds in the space of a month when she first worked there.

 

“Well,” she said, flustered. “Go and watch it.”

 

1.27.

 

She wiped down the counter, and ground more beans, letting the heady aroma fill her nose.

 

1.29.

 

At precisely one thirty, the door to Sherwood Café opened and she entered. The mayor. Regina Mills. Poised, pant-suited, perfect. Her hair fell in sharp glossy flicks, her shirt was just that little bit too unbuttoned to be entirely respectable, and her lips were plump and red and utterly kissable. Marian felt her eyelashes flutter and the dopey smile press unbidden across her own lips.

 

“Large trim latte, double shot, take away,” Regina said in the voice that had been a large part of Marian’s fantasies for the past year.

 

“I know your order, Mayor Mills,” Marian said, writing the order on the side of the take away cup.

 

“And yet you never thought to have my coffee ready when I arrive at the same time every day?” she replied, removing her scarf and baring her neck.

 

Marian felt her skin heat up, grateful not for the first time since she’d met the mayor of Storybrooke that her skin colour wasn’t conducive to showing scarlet cheeks. “Would you like me to?” she asked, tamping down the ground coffee and letting the water start to flow.

 

Regina tilted her head to the side and scrunched her lips as the coffee machine hissed. “No,” she said eventually. “I enjoy these few minutes where no one wants anything from me.”

 

And there was that ridiculous smile again. Marian tried to hold back, but it was impossible. “You having a good day, Mayor Mills?” she asked.

 

“Busy,” Regina Mills said. “I almost didn’t get here.” Marian grinned. She knew, though the mayor didn’t know she knew, that Regina had her daily coffee scheduled as a meeting in her calendar. She was good friends with Regina’s secretary and sometimes Nani would give her titbits from Regina’s day at drinks on Friday. Marian had had a few interesting dreams after Nani had described the sounds coming from Regina’s office when she’d taken a sip of Marian’s coffee.

 

She steamed milk and smiled and tried not to look at Regina Mills. She then eased the milk into the cup, watching it soften the rich caramel colour. Before she placed the lid on the takeaway cup, she drew a heart in the milk. Regina would never see it but Marian liked to think it made the coffee better. “Here you go,” she said, handing over the coffee and Regina Mills did the utterly unprecedented thing and took a sip, right there, in the store and all Marian could do was watch.

 

The throaty growl she emitted just about left Marian in a puddle behind the counter. “How are you so good at this?” Regina asked, voice lower than usual.

 

“It’s a gift,” Marian said and Regina Mills actually, genuinely smiled, tongue poking out almost imperceptibly between white teeth.

 

“I suppose I won’t be running you out of town any time soon,” she said and left, hips swaying.

 

Marian walked on air all afternoon, oblivious even to Tiana’s gentle mockery. Regina Mills made noises that were basically orgasmic when she drank her coffee and Marian got to hear them. She was alone when she came to lock up, and it was dark out already. She pulled her maroon coat more closely around her body, shivering.

 

She walked down the empty alley, throwing out the black garbage bag in the bins on the way. Then there was a swooping sound and she found herself pressed into the brick wall of the pharmacy. A low voice whispered, “quiet.”

 

“What are you–“ Marian started to protest before a hand was clamped over her mouth. She contemplated biting but then heard a noise and she froze. The ticking was unmistakable. The Crocodile.

 

“Kiss me,” the woman hissed and there was something about that voice that meant Marian didn’t hesitate, reaching one hand up and pulling the woman towards her. She felt the leather straps of a mask on the back of the woman’s head. A superhero. Or villain? She couldn’t be sure. At that point, she found she didn’t care. If this would save her from the Crocodile, she’d do most anything. She pulled off her beanie and stuck it on the woman’s head, hiding evidence of the mask.

 

Their lips met and Marian’s hands swept lower, followed the leather-covered curve of the woman’s back, pulled her closer, thrilled at the press of the body against hers. God, Tiana was right. It had been an embarrassingly long time for her. One hand travelled further, gripped the woman’s arse, and she was almost gratified to hear her moan into Marian’s mouth.

 

The steps down the alley quickened. The ticking intensified. The Crocodile approached. Marian’s heart pounded, though she wasn’t sure if it was fear that caused her heart to race or the woman’s hands caressing her cheeks, sweeping lower, under her thick coat, hands ghosting her body over the plaid shirt.

 

The Crocodile made a sneering noise of disgust as he passed them by and when the ticking was no longer audible, the woman pushed away from her. Marian fell back against the brick, staggering. “Oh my God,” she murmured.

 

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I have to go.”

 

“Yeah,” Marian said. “Yeah. Course.” There was a swish of black, like a shadow, and the woman was gone. She ran the rest of the way home, heart hammering in her ears all the way.

 

The next day, she let her hair out of its braid, buttoned up her shirt and tucked it into her jeans, made a double shot, trim latte, and left Mulan, her part-time student worker, manning the counter at one fifteen. She walked carefully over to the town hall, stepping delicately over several potholes in the pavement that looked like they’d been created by fireball blasts. She walked past the newspaper stands, the Storybrooke Mirror advertising that the Crocodile had been taken down last night at long last.

 

“Hey, girl,” Nani said, pushing thick black hair behind her ears, when she saw her. “You braving the mayor’s office?”

 

“There’s a first time for everything,” Marian said. “She in?”

 

“About to leave,” Nani replied. “She’s in a surprisingly good mood today.”

 

Marian smiled and pushed open the double doors into the mayor’s office. Regina was pulling on a trench coat, wincing at the effort required. “Marian?” she asked, brow furrowed. “What are you doing here?”

 

“I thought I’d save you the walk,” she said. “Did you see that the Crocodile was taken down by a mysterious vigilante?”

 

“I am the mayor,” Regina said. “I generally learn of these things.” She reached out for the coffee and Marian made her stretch for it. Regina winced.

 

“Vigorous work out?” Marian asked, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Something like that,” Regina said. She placed the coffee on the edge of her desk. “Thank you for bringing my drink by. What do I owe you?”

 

“A date,” Marian said. “Generally I don’t kiss like that before a first date.”

 

“I beg your pardon?” Regina’s hand went to her scarf, twisting it nervously.

 

“Mayor Mills, I’ve been fantasising about your lips since the first day you walked into Sherwood Café,” Marian said. “Did you really think I wouldn’t recognise them when you kissed me?”

 

Regina stepped forward, only inches from Marian, so close Marian could see the thin scar above her lip, the exhausted circles hidden beneath concealer. “You’ve been fantasising?”

 

“Oh yeah,” Marian said, grinning. “Kind of hoping that now I don’t need to.”

 

And Regina’s hand clutched at the front of Marian’s shirt, pulling her forward and bridging the distance between them.


	8. In which Regina and Emma might be soulmates?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, you should all go and read Alsike's 'Shatter' instead. It's much better.

Emma orders and then sits near the counter, waiting for her coffee. It’s just gone rush hour and the only people in the coffee shop are students and an old man reading a newspaper. She flicks idly through the magazine lying on the table. It’s one of those free ones that advertise upcoming gigs and local businesses and has next to no actual content.

 

“Regina,” the barista yells. “Large skinny latte, triple shot.”

 

It’s the same order as Emma’s but that’s not what causes her to whirl around. It’s the name. Regina. The name emblazoned on her wrist in clumsy, childish cursive. The name that blossomed there on her twelfth birthday, had her sent back to the group home because the family she was living with (the family she was happy with) couldn’t allow an “invert” into their homes. The name she hid with long sleeves and bracelets and bandages.

 

The name of her soul mate.

 

She’s imagined Regina over the years. She’d be tall and large and have red hair and a booming laugh and they’d bake. When she looked back over the pitiful collection of photos from her childhood, she’d laughed bitterly because her imaginings could have described her first foster mother to a tee.

 

The woman currently picking up her drink looks nothing like that. She’s tiny, with long dark hair and dark eyes and she’s wearing clothes that wouldn’t look out of place in a board room even though she couldn’t be much older than twenty. There must be thousands of people called ‘Regina’ in the States, let alone the rest of the world (and she knew a guy whose soul mate’s name was in, like, Māori and he was all, “like hell I’m moving to some island at the end of the world”) But when Emma looks at her, she sees home and it terrifies the shit out of her.

 

So she runs, forgetting her coffee, forgetting everything.

 

She moves out of her apartment the next week, hitching a ride with this guy, Neal, to Boston, and fucks him in the backseat one night because she’s bored and he’s there and she wants to forget.

 

He’s long gone by the time she works out she’s pregnant and she contemplates an abortion but, honestly, she can’t afford it. So she has the baby and she doesn’t look at him and he’s adopted out – a closed adoption so she can’t think about going after him because she can’t be a mother.

 

And time goes on. She screws around, with people who haven’t found their soulmates, with guys who want to sow their wild oats before marrying the ‘one’. She helps women out of abusive relationships. “But he’s my soulmate,” one says and Emma wants to scream because people are people and having this bond, this _connection_ , doesn’t stop people from being shit. She tracks down people for their other halves in between tracking down dropkicks who’ve skipped bail.

 

She’s twenty-eight when she tracks a bail jumper to Storybrooke, Maine, and breaks her leg tackling him. She ends up in the hospital, next to a little boy who’s broken his leg in three places. “What happened, kid?” she asks.

 

“Fell off my castle,” he says, shrugging.

 

“You have a castle? You a prince?”

 

He stares at her like he can’t believe he’s in a bed next to such an incredible imbecile. “It’s a playground,” he says. “There aren’t princes in America.”

 

Emma nods. “You got parents who’re worried?” He hasn’t had a visitor all day, but seems content flicking through comic books and charming the nurses with his constant questions.

 

“Mom,” he said. “She’s coming by later. You want a comic?”

 

So Emma takes the offered X-Men comic and when the boy’s mother arrives she’s chatting with him about ‘The Flash’. He’s been sneak watching the TV show even though his mom says he’s too young and they’re talking about family; Henry’s recently found out that he was adopted and he likes how Barry has this family with Iris and Joe. “Not everyone’s families are normal,” he says. “That’s why I like comics.”

 

“Henry.” The woman’s voice is sharp and Emma looks up and there’s something familiar about her, something about those dark eyes jolting the base of her consciousness, but she can’t place it. “How are you feeling this afternoon, _mijo_?” She sits on his bed, by his stomach, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing and Emma feels a squeeze in her heart, seeing this mother who loves her little boy so much.

 

“Good,” he says. “I’m going home today, yeah?”

 

“Yes, you are,” she says. “Dr Whale just has to check you out.” When she moves, her shirt sleeve slips up and the name ‘Daniel’ is scrawled on her wrist. Emma also notices the scarring through it, like someone tried to cross it out in the most damaging way possible. It doesn’t fit with the put-together woman before her to allow any sort of imperfection to remain visible.

 

“Mom, I made a friend,” Henry says and he’s grinning, eyes squinting into nothingness and nose scrunching. He looks over at her and Emma realises she never introduced herself to him.

 

“Emma Swan,” she says, holding out a hand. “Henry’s been great company.”

 

“Mayor Mills,” the woman says, eyeing Emma’s battered leather jacket and boots lying over the chair by her bed. Her eyes fall on Emma’s arms and she might have imagined it, but her eyes darken for a moment. She takes Emma’s hand and shakes it and Emma feels this sense of serenity from her touch. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

 

“Tracking someone down,” Emma says. “I’ll be out of here soon as I can drive.” Her car’s a manual, which is going to rather eat into her plans. She’s already called the closest person to a friend she has to ship her a box of clothes and she’s got enough leave owing to take a few weeks off. An enforced holiday.

 

“You should come over for dinner,” Henry says, “when you’re out of hospital.”

 

Emma frowns. “I don’t want to disturb your mom’s life.”

 

“You won’t. Mom can pick you up even,” he says. “Please?”

 

Emma looks over at Mayor Mills who rolls her eyes at her son’s begging. “Very well,” she says. “I’ll pick your friend up for dinner tomorrow.”

 

Emma doesn’t actually expect the woman to do as she’s promised but the moment Emma’s on her feet, albeit with crutches, Mayor Mills is by her side. “Dr Whale called me,” she says. “I asked him to.”

 

“Thanks,” Emma says. “Look, I know you’re not too keen on this…”

 

Mayor Mills huffs a sigh. “It will make Henry happy. That’s all that matters.” But she smiles and Emma thinks maybe she doesn’t mind so much after all.

 

The house is enormous, the dinner delicious and Emma feels horribly out of her depth, thrust into conversations with Henry that jump from good and evil to lasagne with nothing to bridge them. Mostly Mayor Mills laughs at Emma’s attempts to keep up, occasionally reminding Henry of his table manners or offering more food.

 

When Henry is in bed, Mayor Mills leads Emma to her study, helping her along with her crutches and pours her a glass of wine. “I know you,” Emma says, setting the wine down on the coffee table. Mayor Mills immediately lifts it, placing it on a coaster. “I mean, I feel like I do, which is ridiculous. I’ve never been to Storybrooke before now.”

 

“We’ve never met,” Mayor Mills says. “I definitely would have remembered.” Is she flirting? Emma can’t tell anymore. She’s had a couple of glasses of red wine and she seems to have stopped pretending to dislike Emma, which is nice.

 

“Oh Mayor Mills,” Emma says. “You sure know how to flatter a girl.” There’s something about her.

 

“Where are you staying?”

 

“There must be a motel or something in town, right?” Emma asks.

 

“You’re not checked in anywhere?” Mayor Mills asks. “Stay here. There’s a guest room.”

 

So Emma goes to bed, warm and tipsy, her heart pounding _I’m Home I’m Home I’m Home._

 

When she wakes, it’s mid-morning and there’s coffee brewed in the machine, croissants on the bench and a note.

 

_Emma,_

_Eat the croissants. If you need to make fresh coffee, it’s in the cupboard above the machine. I will be home at twelve for lunch. I can drive you to the bed and breakfast then if necessary._

_Regina Mills_

 

 

She’s tried not to think about that name in a long time, tried not to consider where her Regina could be. And then she remembers where she’s seen that face before. The coffee shop. Eleven years ago.

 

She may not be Regina’s soulmate, not if the name scratched on her wrist is any indication. Regina Mills may not be _her_ Regina. But, honestly, she doesn’t care. Every fibre in her being screams ‘home’ when she sees her and she’s not running away from that. She’s not a terrified seventeen year old now.

 

She pours herself a cup of coffee, grabs a croissant and waits.


	9. In which Regina and Emma are accidentally feuding celebrities who meet at an award show

_Swan and Mills: Is this war?_

_Will Emma Swan fire back after Twitter comments from Regina Mills?_

_Ugly Ducklings take on Mills’ Evil Regals_

The ridiculous thing was, Regina reflected, she’d never even met the woman. She’d made one stupid, exhausted tweet at three in the morning making fun of Emma Swan’s latest weird, angry song, this one about a one-handed ex called ‘Hook, Line and Sinker’. _Emma Swan has started to date fictional men now. Clearly rumours of having dated all the men in Hollywood are true._

 

And then the fucking media pounced. She’s had her agent on her all morning about it. “Delete it,” he said. “Tweet an apology,” he said. “Photo op,” he said.

 

“No,” Regina had told him to each of his pleas. She wasn’t going to engage. Honestly, she couldn’t be bothered. She had her son, just adopted, and he was an American kid in need of a home, thank you very much. She had her latest film – a stupid thriller where she played some Latina stereotype, true, but it let her do the good stuff. She had press conferences for the Indie darling she’d starred in that was garnering all sorts of award buzz. She didn’t have time to play nice to some musician – no matter how beautiful or talented she apparently was (and Regina would deny it if anyone asked but she’d watched her performance at the MTV Awards and not been unmoved). “I’m sure Ms Swan will survive without my apologies.”

 

And so rumours of a feud continued. Photos placed together – Regina looking angry (which, you know, she’d been tracked by the paparazzi while taking her son to a check-up), Emma Swan looking sadly at a sandwich –the implication being that Regina had made Emma Swan sad. This infuriated Regina because she was pretty certain Emma Swan wouldn’t have even read her tweet.

 

The media surrounding their so-called feud was in its dying throes when the first awards show of the season took place. Regina was nominated for her role in ‘Heartless’ so she allowed herself to be prodded and poked into a black gown a size too small for her and hair and makeup done so she didn’t even recognise herself in the mirror. She kissed Henry goodbye; he gurgled and pulled at the expensive necklace around her neck but let her leave peaceably enough, though it tore at her heart to do so, even when she trusted Belle French with Henry’s life.

 

It was on the red carpet, in the midst of an interview, that she noticed Emma Swan, dressed in spangled gold, blonde curls bouncing around her shoulders, red lipstick piercing her mouth. For a moment she froze and the interviewer noticed. “Are you concerned that Emma Swan is here? You famously refused to apologise for your comments on Twitter.”

 

Regina frowned. “I hardly know Ms Swan,” she said. “Perhaps we could discuss my film?” Her agent would be having a hernia at home. She hoped her interview wouldn’t make the cut. She was hardly the most exciting person here.

 

Finally, she made it away from the incessant questions about Emma Swan and how much she enjoyed filming ‘White-out’ (she was here for ‘Heartless’, not the tacky thriller) and how she was juggling new motherhood with her career, and she made her way into the theatre where the awards were being held.

 

She’d barely made it into the foyer when she felt an arm on her elbow and was dragged aside, stumbling, into a bathroom. Straightening up, she glowered over at her captor. Emma Swan.

 

“Sorry,” Emma Swan said, though she didn’t look exactly apologetic. “Needed to get you alone.”

 

“I fail to understand why,” she said.

 

“I assume you’re as sick of the questions about the ‘feud’ as I am,” Emma said. “We’re sitting near each other. Make nice at these awards and they’ll get bored with it.”

 

“Did your publicist suggest this?” Regina asked.

 

Emma shrugs. “I’m bored of making bland statements. Let’s just pretend at friendship for a night.”

 

So Regina shrugged and agreed. It was as they were leaving the bathroom that Emma Swan said, “you got something quite wrong,” she said.

 

“Oh?” Regina asked, raising an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

 

“Hook wasn’t a man,” she said and she sauntered out of the bathroom, Regina following behind and trying desperately not to stare at Emma Swan’s pert ass swaying in the gold dress.

 

True to her word, Emma was sitting at the table next to Regina’s, and placed herself so her chair backed onto Regina’s own. She turned as the cameras started to roll and whispered, “so this is when I start to charm your panties off, Ms Mills,” she said.

 

And Regina found herself whispering back, “I like that you assume I’m wearing panties.” She was gratified when Emma Swan choked on her champagne.

 

It became a game of one-upping each other after that, fuelled by too much champagne and what Regina was starting to realise was lust. Emma smiled politely at her, clapped when the first award was announced and muttered into her ear, “you were hot in that cop show. Wanted to hear that husky voice screaming my name.”

 

“I watched you at the MTV Awards last year,” Regina whispered back during some mini-series award she didn’t care about, smiling professionally the whole time. “Wanted to be that dancer rubbing up against you.”

 

So when Emma Swan won the best original song category, she shouldn’t have been surprised when she was pulled into a hug, Emma’s hand straying just shy of inappropriate and whispering in her ear, “going to get two prizes tonight. The statue and you.”

 

And Regina chose to blame the champagne on the fact that she whispered back, “I’m not the one dipped in gold, dear. You’ll be mine.”

 

Emma made her way on stage and took the trophy. “Oh, look,” she said, grinning out at the audience and holding the statue up to her. “We match!” And Regina knew she was talking directly to her and she felt a heat in the pit of her stomach that she managed to supress, smiling politely and clapping at the appropriate moments.

 

On her return, Emma brushed her fingers over the bare skin of Regina’s shoulders and she felt her whole body shiver.

 

She was drunk by the time she reached her own category. She didn’t win, of course. She’d never expected to but it felt like a punch in the gut all the same. She managed to plaster on a smile throughout and was surprised to find herself pulled into a clumsy hug by Emma Swan when the winning actress (some ingénue, barely twenty, beautiful). “Sorry,” she whispered.

 

“Didn’t expect to win,” Regina replied.

 

“I’m still sorry,” Emma said and Regina’s heart ached for a moment.

 

They headed to the same after-party, Emma dragging Regina by the wrist into her limo and she was just drunk enough to allow it. “I’m sorry,” she said, as the limo drove away from the theatre. “I was exhausted when I wrote that stupid tweet.”

 

Emma Swan rolled her eyes and slid across the broad seat, towards her. “I’m going to kiss you,” she said.

 

Regina let her fingers dust Emma’s arms, letting them fall past her arms to her hips. “Not if I kiss you first,” she said and then there was no more talking, just kisses and nips and breathy sighs coming from Emma Swan and Regina’s hair utterly destroyed by Emma’s roaming hands and Emma’s dressed hiked up mid-thigh so Regina could pull down the brief underwear Emma was wearing.

 

They arrived and Regina tucked the thong into her purse. “So you’ll have to come home with me,” she said, and Emma grinned and surged forward, kissing her one more time and it was at that point the driver opened the limo door to the waiting paparazzi.

 

“Well,” Emma said as cameras flashed. “Looks like we’ve well and truly put paid to the feud rumour.”

 

Regina thought she might panic in the morning but right now she’d fallen, hook, line and sinker. 


	10. In which Emma is an artist and she's a little preoccupied with one face in particular

Emma sits in the same café she’s been coming to for the past year at least three times a week to drink coffee and try to draw. She works evenings but it’s not like bar work is her calling.

 

Art is.

 

Not that she’s been getting that much done lately. She has an exhibition coming up in, like, two weeks. Nothing big, just her and a couple of other artists at a hole in the wall gallery.

 

She’s earlier than usual – the results of her roommate engaging in an altogether too enthusiastic round of morning sex. She’s doodling on the edge of the paper, spirals and flowers and general crap like she’s a twelve-year-old girl drawing on her school binder when the woman enters.

 

She’s beautiful, but it’s more than that. There’s something about her, this rare mix of hard and vulnerable in the planes of her face. The café’s quiet and Emma can hear her order, in this low, sonorous voice. “Medium latte, no sugar. Have here.” Then she sits, a couple of tables over from Emma, offering an unobstructed view.

 

And all of a sudden, Emma’s hand starts flying over the page. She devotes a lot of time to the curve of the woman’s eyebrows, arched and sarcastic as she reads her newspaper. She draws her eyes, wide and dark except where the light catches them and they’re almost golden. The lips give her trouble; she can’t get the purse to them right. It’s almost prissy, a woman afraid to smile.

 

“More coffee, Em?” the waitress – Ruby – asks and Emma covers her paper with her arm. She’s too late though because Ruby sees the drawing and starts to laugh.

 

“Does little Emma have a crush?”

 

Emma frowns. “She has an interesting face. That’s all.”

 

“Interesting because you want to bone her,” Ruby says. “Is that an appropriate metaphor?”

 

Emma laughs. “You’re the worst,” she says.

 

“Her name’s Regina,” Ruby says, pouring Emma a refill. “She’s in here at seven thirty most mornings.”

 

Emma grins, looking over at the woman – Regina – and wiping at a smudge of pencil down her arm.

 

*

 

She starts coming in early. Ruby grins knowingly when she stalks in at seven thirty, yawning and scowling, and pours her coffee. “A scone too,” Emma says, fumbling with her change.

 

The scone is soon forgotten when Regina enters. Emma starts drawing, sketchy images rather than the detail she was trying for last week, getting the shape of her face right. At some point the woman notices her staring and glares over at her.

 

She doesn’t like the concept of muses, the idea that something external inspires an artist rather than her own hard work. But as her collection of work comes together for the exhibit, she starts to realise that Regina has kick-started her. Regina might just be her muse.

 

She’s working on hair, trying to get the curl of the dark locks and shading just right, when Regina comes in. That morning she’s not alone. She’s got a kid with her, must be about ten, stocky and with a long pointed nose and sharp grey eyes.

 

Regina doesn’t have a wedding ring. Emma should know. She’s spent enough time drawing those hands.

 

She takes a sip of coffee and doesn’t notice when the kid comes over. “Hey,” he says. “Are you drawing? Can you show me?”

 

Emma closes her sketch book, heart pounding. “I don’t like to show people my drawings until I’m done, kid. Sorry.”

 

He shrugs. “That’s okay, I guess. I’m the same with my stories.”

 

“I could draw you if your mom doesn’t mind,” she says because there’s something about him.

 

“I’ll ask,” the kid says and runs over to Regina, tugging on her sleeve. She gives Emma a long, hard look – her eyes narrowed and cold – and then nods. He runs back. “She said yes!”

 

So he settles down in front of her and Emma turns to a fresh page in her sketch book and starts drawing. The kid’s fidgety, but he calms when Regina sits beside him, handing him a hot chocolate. “Henry,” she says. “If you want this woman to draw you, you have to be much more still.”

 

“He really doesn’t,” Emma says. “Movement helps. Just chat; pretend I’m not here.”

 

Regina pushes a hand through Henry’s hair, too long at the front. “The hot chocolate all right?”

 

He pulls away, that natural pre-teen boy instinct more than a dislike of his mother. Emma sketches his pointed chin, the grin as he turns to Regina. “Perfect,” he says. “Thanks, Mom.”

 

They chat as Emma sketches and she finds that she’s not just drawing Henry, but sketching his mother too; Regina’s hand in his hair, her smile soft and fond, her lips quirked into a rare smile.

 

Regina’s phone beeps and she looks at it, grimacing. “Henry, we need to go,” she says. “Your appointment is soon.”

 

Emma scribbles her signature in the corner of the picture and tears it from her sketchbook. “Here you go, kid,” she says. “An Emma Swan original.”

 

He looks at it, his grin spreading wider and wider. “It’s awesome!” he says. “Look, Mom. You’re in it!”

 

Regina eyes the picture, worrying her lip between her teeth. Emma’s sketched her like that before. “Very nice. Go to car, Henry. I’ll be along in a moment.” Henry runs out, his mother’s car keys swinging in his hands.

 

“Nice kid,” Emma says, closing her sketchbook. “Polite.”

 

“Thank you, Ms Swan,” Regina says. “You know, your picture… your drawing of Henry is much less sure, less confident than the picture of me.”

 

“Really?” Emma asks and before she realises what’s happening, Regina’s stolen her sketchbook from under her elbow and is flicking through it.

 

“They’re all of me,” she says, disbelief etched onto her features and Emma blushes. 

 

“You have an interesting face,” she says.

 

“Damning me with faint praise,” Regina responds though she’s not unamused. “Were you ever going to tell me about these?”

 

“Actually,” Emma says, reaching back into her bag for a pamphlet, “I’ve got an exhibit. You might want to come along?”

 

Regina stares at her. “Am I going to be confronted by my face on every surface?”

 

She shrugs. “Well, I’m not the only artist,” she says. “There’s a couple of you,” she adds. “If that’s weird, I can lose those pieces.” The form the bulk of her exhibition pieces, though the majority aren’t faces, but hands or impressions or the play of muscles in crossed legs.

 

“No,” Regina says. “Don’t do that.” She observes Emma, eyes scanning her face, down to the pencil smudged hands and ripped jeans, lingering on the gap between the waistband of her jeans and tank top as Emma leans back to put her sketchbook away and on Emma’s bra, visible through the thin fabric. “I may just see you there.”

 

She takes the pamphlet.


	11. In which Regina and Tinkerbell work in a coffee shop together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regina/Tinkerbell.

It’s far too early in the morning and Regina’s drunk about three mugs of filter coffee already, while setting up the coffee shop to start the day, and her stomach feels uncomfortably full. They’ve been open ten minutes and Regina’s anger is starting to build. Where the hell is Tink?

 

She’s making coffee and the queue is growing at an alarming rate and she’s getting to a stage where she can’t even deal with people anymore when Tink runs in. “Sorry, sorry!” she cries, throwing her bag and coat out the back and returning with her apron hanging from around her neck. “Buses.” She ties the apron strings in a neat bow at the base of her back

 

“You live a ten minute walk away,” Regina says, her lips pursing and eyes narrowing, and Tink rolls her eyes.

 

“Okay, fine, I slept in,” she says and shoots Regina a quick smile, as if to ask whether she can be forgiven.

 

“You’re on the till,” Regina says, grateful to move permanently to the espresso machine. It’s impossible to stay mad at Tink for long though. She’s too goddamn cheerful.

 

Isobel Tinker waltzed into the coffee shop six months ago and basically hired herself into the job. “American coffee is terrible,” she’d said. “I have years of experience back home.” She was studying for her masters in Linguistics, she was perky, and she was incredible at customer service. Regina, who’d had her share of customer complaints in the past because she didn’t suffer fools, was grateful to have someone sharing shifts with her who was happy to do the majority of the customer work – despite the frustratingly chirpy attitude.

 

The morning rush over, Regina cleans up behind the counter and Tink replenishes the cabinet. “You over your grump?” she asks, peering at Regina sideways, the irrepressible smile firmly in place, like she sees something funny no one else can.

 

Regina scowls over at her. She entirely too pert and pretty for this early in the morning, her ponytail of blonde curls bouncing as she works and her lip gloss perfect in spite of two hours of solid work. “I don’t grump, Isobel,” she says.

 

Tink grimaces at the use of her first name. “Make yourself a coffee and go on break,” she says. “I can handle the next fifteen minutes."

 

Regina nods, making herself a latte and removing her apron, revealing the uniform of black jeans and tee-shirt that she wears to work daily. She sits at a table in the corner, ostensibly reading her course notes, but really watching Tink.

 

She’s adorable.

 

She can’t remember when this crush started but she’s in far too deep for it to stop now. Tink grins over at her, catching her eye and raising an eyebrow, as one of their regulars leaves. He always orders the most ludicrously complicated drinks and he’s never happy with them. He refuses to be served by “that Mexican girl” anymore after Regina rolled her eyes one too many times and it’s always reassuring to know that the irritating customers are also horrible racists so she doesn’t have to feel guilty about hating them. Once upon a time, Regina might have imagined Tink saved those grins for her. But she knows better. She’s seen Tink with the customers. She’s just a cheerful person.

 

Whatever. Regina’s totally at peace with it. She’s not pining – even if Marian, who works weekends, mocks her incessantly.

 

They’re closing up when Tink asks her. “Want to get a drink?” she asks. “Celebrate it being Friday?”

 

Regina looks at her phone. She’s driving home tomorrow at seven. Her mother expects her in Storybrooke by ten; it’s the Miner’s Day festival and as the mayor’s daughter Regina absolutely _must_ be there. It’s hideous. “I probably shouldn’t…” she says, sighing.

 

“Oh, c’mon, Regina,” Tink says, fluttering her eyelashes.

 

And Regina’s unable to resist. “Fine,” she says. “One drink.” Tink bounces on the balls of her feet and beams up at her, actually beams, a ray of sunlight personified. Regina re-applies her lipstick, attempts to fix her hair in the staff bathroom, and follows Tink down the street to a cutsey, English-style pub.

 

Tink grabs them a booth and buys her a beer, sliding in beside her before swigging back a draught of it. “Ah, that’s the stuff,” she says. “God, I miss Kiwi beer though.”

 

Regina smiles and takes a sip. “Do you miss much about New Zealand?”

 

This topic takes up the next ten minutes, Tink waxing rhapsodic about coffee and marmite and something called pineapple lumps. From what Regina can gather, she mostly misses food, which, well, fair enough. Then she asks, “so, what makes Regina Mills tick?”

 

Regina starts. “I don’t know,” she says. “Was that why you wanted to get a drink?”

 

Tink laughs. “I want to get to know you, Regina Mills,” she says and, oh god, her hand slides down beside her and touches Regina’s, pinky fingers linking, and Regina tenses because even that little touch makes her feel electric and if that’s bad, she can only imagine how many fireworks would explode if she ever kissed her.

 

“There’s not much to know,” Regina says. “I’m studying politics.”

 

“Oh, honey,” Tink says, “I know _that_. What are you into?”

 

“Horses,” Regina says and is surprised at herself. She hasn’t been riding since that one horrible day. She was rather put off horses when her mother caught her kissing a boy in the stables when she was in high school and had her horse, her beautiful Rocinante, put down. “I like baking as well, I guess, and reading.”

 

Tink’s still holding her hand and she doesn’t quite know how to deal with it except that she knows she doesn’t want to pull away. She wants to shift closer. She wants to kiss Tink, who is staring at her with those big, plaintive eyes like Regina’s the only person in the room. “Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Single? Big Love relationship?”

 

Regina rolls her eyes. “Single.”

 

“Ditto,” Tink says, sighing. “Like, I do have this theory that my soulmate’s out there somewhere. I went to a psychic once but she was alarmingly vague about how I’ll find her.”

 

There are far too many things in that statement for Regina to process (that Tink believes in soulmates, that Tink goes to psychics, that Tink’s apparently a lesbian), so she settles on saying, “you went to a psychic?”

 

“Yeah,” Tink says, like this is a totally normal thing and not, like, throwing money down the drain.

 

“You know they’re frauds, right?”

 

“There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophies,” Tink says loftily and then giggles. “I also believe in ghosts.”

 

“You are unilaterally ridiculous,” Regina says but she’s laughing.

 

Tink looks all too pleased with herself. “I made Regina Mills laugh,” she says, and she is so smug and so it’s hardly Regina’s fault that in order to wipe the stupid smirk off her face she has to lean over and kiss her.

 

And Tink kisses her back, the hand not clutching the beer bottle winding through her hair and when Regina breaks away, chest rising and falling too quickly and heart fluttering and horrified, she giggles. “I made Regina Mills kiss me,” she says. “God, this has been the work of ages.”

 

Regina scowls. “Shut up.”

 

Tink grins, tongue poking between teeth. “Make me, sweetheart.”

 

So Regina does.


	12. In which Regina is Emma's boss at a bookshop (and Henry's in trouble)

It’s New Year’s Day and the bookshop is dead. Emma grimaces at the list of chores her boss has left attached to the cash register. The list is a page long and written in clipped writing that looks as though it has been typed. Everything about Regina Mills is tidy, perfect, put together and it infuriates Emma, as much as it attracts her.

 

Regina’s not here yet though. It’s unusual. She texted, a terse _will be late_ , and didn’t respond to any of Emma’s subsequent text messages. Emma so desperately hopes it’s because of a hangover, too much champagne on New Year’s Eve. Probably Mills went to some fancy party, all glitz and glamour and expensive alcohol by the bucket-load and kisses when the ball dropped.

 

Her stomach clenches at the thought.

 

She’s ticked off items one and two on the list ( _dust picture book shelves_ and _put out new stock of ‘Americanah’_ ) and served the rare customer desperate to buy a book at nine in the morning on New Year’s Day when Regina enters. She’s not as put together as usual; her usually perfectly coiffed hair left natural and dragged back into a ponytail, and she hasn’t managed makeup. Hell if she’s not totally beautiful though.

 

She’s also not alone. There’s a kid with her. She’d have thought he was a customer, if not for the fact that Regina has a proprietary hold on his hand and the fact that he’s sulking, his face the very image of Regina’s when she’s displeased someone. And Emma frowns herself at the realisation that she’s committed a variety of Regina’s faces to memory.

 

Most bosses, when late, would apologise. Regina immediately starts barking orders. “Have you completed the list?”

 

Emma would hate Regina if she didn’t know better, if she didn’t know that the walls, the ice and chill, were a front. She’d left her phone at the store once and, on returning to collect it, had found Regina crying in the back room.

 

“Have I done the twenty point list in the forty-five minutes the store’s been open?” Emma asks and Regina nods, staring expectantly at her. The kid snorts.

 

“Mom, stop setting unreasonable expectations that no one has any hope of keeping,” he says. He looks about fourteen, all gangly limbs and sharp features that he hasn’t yet grown into and an air of studied indifference that is oh so very teenaged.

 

Regina sighs. “Henry, you’re in enough trouble without adding sass talk to your crimes.” The kid – Henry – sighs and slumps into the chair behind the counter, pulling what looks like a history text book from his bag and sticking headphones on. Emma can hear tinny rock music seep out from the headphones. “I’ll be out the back,” Regina says. “Yell out if it gets busy.”

 

Emma nods and looks back at the list. Number three is _clean up all your rubbish and notes behind the counter especially the rude cartoons because they’re not funny Ms Swan._ She snorts and gathers up the piles of left over receipts and scrap paper and sorts through them. There aren’t _too_ many comics, Regina coming over all boss-like and Emma mocking her with drawings, but there’s enough and she feels a momentary pang of guilt. But if Regina had actually been offended she would have thrown them out herself, not stuck them on the list.

 

She throws them in the trash. A customer enters and she goes to help them. When she’s purchased the latest ‘Percy Jackson’ for the little girl with her, Emma notices that Henry’s not in the seat anymore, but scanning the Young Adult lit section, headphones still in. “Hey, kid,” she says, tapping him on the arm. He removes the headphones. “Looking for anything in particular?”

 

“Browsing,” he says. “Don’t you have a List?” The way he says ‘list’ makes it important – a capital ‘L’ list – and she suspects Henry gets a lot of lists from Regina ( _tidy your room, alphabetise the video games, dishes, homework)_.

 

“Wouldn’t do to get everything done too quickly,” Emma says. “Your mom will just give me more work.”

 

He snorts. “True.”

 

“So,” she says, settling in on a step-stool beside the section he’s browsing. “What’d you do?”

 

“There was this party,” he says. “Mom wasn’t supposed to be home until late. She had, like, a date or something.” He screws up his face.

 

“You didn’t like the guy?”

 

“He was a douche,” Henry says and this time it’s Emma who snorts. “Mom always dates the douchiest people and then she’s all surprised and devastated when they start being douchebags.”

 

“So I take it your mom came home early,” Emma says.

 

“Yeah, at, like, ten,” Henry says. “I got dragged out of Ava’s party, Mom yelling at me the whole way.”

 

Emma laughs. “She call you _idiota_?”

 

“That’s reserved for you, Ms Swan,” Regina says from behind her. “Henry, you look like you’re enjoying yourself far too much.”

 

He rolls his eyes over at Emma, who grins at him. As he walks past her, back to his seat at the counter, he whispers, “no _idiota_ but lots of hand gestures.”

 

Emma laughs and Regina glares at them both. Henry spends the rest of the morning reading his text book and snorting occasionally as he scribbles notes. When Emma raises an eyebrow at him, he says, “this is upsettingly pro-Columbus.”

 

“And you’re doing history homework on New Year’s Day because?”

 

“I failed my last history test,” he says. “Mom was _not_ impressed.”

 

“I’d have given a lot to have a parent who cared about my grades,” Emma says, ticking off stock.

 

“I guess,” he says, shrugging.

 

“I’m going out to get lunch,” Regina says, returning from the stockroom. “Any requests, dear?”

 

“Stale bread and water, please,” Henry says. “It’ll go nicely with this prison that is my life.”

 

“Oh, _mijo_ ,” Regina says, kissing the top of his head. “So melodramatic.”

 

She returns with coffee for her and Emma, sandwiches and donuts for all of them. “You didn’t have to do that,” Emma says, though she’s already drunk half the takeaway cup of coffee. Regina has done the unthinkable and flipped the store sign closed.

 

“Don’t get used to it, Ms Swan,” Regina says. “You simply haven’t irritated me as much as my son today.” She chucks Henry under the chin and her smile is fond.

 

Henry rolls his eyes as Emma preens. “Stop it, you’ll make me blush,” she says, fluttering her eyelashes, and then realises she’s fluttering her lashes at her boss and blushes for real.

 

In retaliation, Regina takes a huge bite from Emma’s donut and laughs at Emma’s look of absolute outrage. Henry looks between the two of them and Emma wonders if she should be nervous about the Regina-esque smirk on her lips.

 

Later, once Regina has returned to the stockroom, and Emma has returned to the List, Henry sidles up to Emma as she’s fixing up the children’s books. “Are you gay?” he asks.

 

Emma turns to him. “What gave it away?” she asks, widening her eyes and holding a hand to her chest melodramatically. “The plaid shirts?”

 

Henry rolls his eyes. “Can you ever answer a question like a normal person?”

 

“I’m bi,” Emma says. “Since we’re answering weirdly personal questions, are you?”

 

Henry shrugs. “Don’t know.” He pauses, scratches his head. “Y’know, you’re not a douchebag.”

 

“Thanks, kid,” Emma says. “You need to diversify your vocabulary.”

 

“You should ask Mom out,” he says. Emma laughs and then looks over at him. He’s never looked more serious, jaw jutting out and eyes large and earnest. “I’m not joking,” he says. “She likes you.”

 

“She doesn’t,” Emma says.

 

“She joked with you,” Henry says. “Mom _never_ jokes.”

 

Emma glances over at the closed stockroom door. She thinks about Regina back there, working on the accounts, placing orders. She thinks about the soft smile when Regina looked at her son at lunch, the interplay of hands when she’s relaxed, the husky quality to her voice that kills Emma sometimes… She’s her boss. It’s totally inappropriate and yet…

 

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Henry says.

 

“Go back to your history text book,” Emma says, swatting him with the List, but she can’t help but smile.


End file.
